Caroline Miller’s Followers (17)

Caroline Miller

Born

in Waycross, Georgia, The United States

August 26, 1903

Died

July 12, 1992

Genre

Literature & Fiction

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Caroline Miller published her first novel, Lamb in His Bosom, in 1933 and became the first Georgian to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The thirty-year-old housewife and author produced one of the most critically acclaimed first novels of the Southern Renaissance period. In addition to the Pulitzer, the novel earned France's Prix Femina in 1934 and became an immediate best-seller.

Miller, the youngest of seven children, was born on August 26, 1903, in Waycross (in Ware County) to a schoolteacher and a Methodist minister. Miller's father died while she was in junior high school; her mother died in her junior year of high school. She demonstrated an early interest in writing and acting and performed in several high school plays. Shortly aft Caroline Miller published her first novel, Lamb in His Bosom, in 1933 and became the first Georgian to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The thirty-year-old housewife and author produced one of the most critically acclaimed first novels of the Southern Renaissance period. In addition to the Pulitzer, the novel earned France's Prix Femina in 1934 and became an immediate best-seller.

Miller, the youngest of seven children, was born on August 26, 1903, in Waycross (in Ware County) to a schoolteacher and a Methodist minister. Miller's father died while she was in junior high school; her mother died in her junior year of high school. She demonstrated an early interest in writing and acting and performed in several high school plays. Shortly after graduation she married her high school English teacher, William D. Miller, and the couple moved to Baxley. In 1927, after six years of marriage, a son was born. Miller gave birth again in 1929 to twin boys. In addition to her domestic duties, Miller continued to write short stories to supplement the family income.

Described by literary critics as a work of regional historical realism, Lamb in His Bosom depicts the struggle and hardships of poor white pioneers in the nineteenth century on the south Georgia frontier, known as the wiregrass region.

The stress of sudden fame and attention strained the Millers' marriage, and in 1936 the couple divorced. In 1937 Caroline Miller married a florist and antique dealer, Clyde H. Ray Jr. The couple made their home in Waynesville, North Carolina, where Caroline helped her husband in his business and gave birth to a fourth son and a daughter.

Miller continued to write features and short stories for newspapers and magazines. Her second novel, Lebanon (1944), received a lukewarm reception from critics, and Miller herself was not satisfied with it.

During the following decades Miller wrote prolifically and completed several manuscripts. Uncomfortable in the glare of the public spotlight so many years earlier, Miller chose not to publish any additional work. She remained in her mountain home in western North Carolina, cherishing her privacy and solitude. Lamb in His Bosom enjoyed a resurgence of popularity a year after Miller's death, when Peachtree Publishers in Atlanta reprinted the novel with an afterword by historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. This signaled a new attention to her work by both literary scholars and historians.

Caroline Miller died on July 12, 1992, knowing that she had received what she once declared to be the true reward of a novelist—"the knowledge that after he dies he will leave the best part of himself behind."

Miller was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2007 and into Georgia Women of Achievement in 2009.
[The New Georgia Encyclopedia] ...more

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Caroline Miller’s books

Average rating: 3.86 · 1,867 ratings · 220 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (Afterword) 3.86 avg rating — 1,859 ratings — published 1933 — 51 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lebanon 4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1944 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	THE CELTIC CROSSES - LES CROIX CELTIQUES 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lebanon 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Los premios Pulitzer de novela. Vol. 1 by Sinclair Lewis, Caroline Miller 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Caroline Miller (?)

“She was glad that she had not let on to Lonzo how she felt; a woman has business to be as strong as a man. No, a woman has to be stronger than a man. A man don't mind laying the ax between a calf's eyes; a woman does mind, and has to stand by and watch it done. A man fathers a little un, but a woman feels it shove up against her heart, and beat on her body, and drag on her with its weight. A woman has to be stronger than a man.”
― Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom

tags: babies, strength-and-courage, women

7 likes

“The little unknown thing was growing within her as suddenly and softly as the first touch of spring on the maples. It was putting out its hidden, watery roots as simply and surely as little cypresses take root in a stretch of swamp water away off yonder. It was coming upon her as quietly as the dark came up from the woods at night and hushed in the little clearing, closing every chink of every shutter tight with nothing. Impulses swelled within her, swelled her body fit to burst; yet they did not come out in words, nor song, nor in any sign.”
― Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom

tags: loss, love, motherhood, pregnancy

3 likes

“God's forgot that ever I lived... He's forgot...and He never cared, nohow...."

He smoothed her brown, rough-palmed hand; he held her hands to keep her from jerking herself away from his admonishing: "Oh, 'tis not true, the words yere a-sayin', Cean Smith; and well ye know it. Never does He forget a child o' His'n. 'Tis His children that forget that He is rememberin'. Get on yere knees and climb on them up to the shelter o' His arms. Knock on His ears with yere prayers. Creep into His arms, Cean Smith, and lay yere head on His bosom, and He'll hold ye closer than inny man ye ever love can ever hold ye. He'll lay His hand on yere head and ye'll stop yere restless fightin' against His will. He'll shut yere pitiful little mouth from complainin' against Him. Ye'll hush and be comforted...."

She dared him to prove his saying: "Then pray fer Him to do them things fer me!"

He prayed; and when he had finished, Cean's will was as water to God's will, and Cean's tears were softening and healing to her heart.”
― Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom

tags: comfort, faith, god-s-will, healing, prayer, suffering

3 likes

See all Caroline Miller's quotes »

Polls

February 2018 New School Poll

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, 260 pages, 1979

58 votes, 17.1%

The Castle by Franz Kafka, 316 pages, 1926

50 votes, 14.7%

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, 439 pages, 1946

44 votes, 13.0%

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, 437 pages, 1994

35 votes, 10.3%

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, 384 pages, 1956

20 votes, 5.9%

The Wreath (book one of Kristin Lavransdatter) by Sigrid Undset, 305 pages, 1920

18 votes, 5.3%

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, 104 pages, 1941

16 votes, 4.7%

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, 276 pages, 1918

16 votes, 4.7%

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, 127 pages, 1923

15 votes, 4.4%

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, 405 pages, 1991

15 votes, 4.4%

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, 256 pages, 1952

14 votes, 4.1%

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, 417 pages, 1915

11 votes, 3.2%

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher, 530 pages, 1987

10 votes, 2.9%

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, 216 pages, 1940

8 votes, 2.4%

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 453 pages, 1932

8 votes, 2.4%

Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, 357 pages, 1933

1 vote, 0.3%

339 total votes

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Caroline Miller’s Followers (17)

Caroline Miller

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